Environmental toxicology

Modern toxicology is a highly eclectic and interdisciplinary science, which utilizes, takes and assimilates from a variety of disciplines to study mechanisms involved in toxic events. This paper provides a brief overview of the field of ecotoxicology and human health toxicology as main components of an environmental toxicology. Many of the basic terms commonly applied in the environmental toxicology field such as acute and chronic toxicity or ecological risk assessment are explained and discussed. The basic of the performing toxic tests are presented. A survey of the sublethal responses and associated with this issue biomarkers of the environmental contaminants was introduced in this chapter. A great deal of emphasis is also placed on the processes involved in toxicokinetics including biotransformation interactions.